We are in the ‘perfect storm’

Who better than a pathbreaker to analyse the 5G runway and map the trajectory of India—emerging as the next big thing on the world map. Let’s take a walk with Sanjay Nayak, CEO and MD, Tejas Networks and see some bends in the road.

Nayak is a leader who has moved many tectonic plates as a telco product, and ecosystem, archetype in India. He has translated 30 years of experience in Telco and networking space well into creating a strong product-orientation – making sure that the new tailwinds of global opportunities and headwinds of geo-political flux are captured well by India. As the Chairman of FICCI’s Sectoral Committee for Science, Technology and Innovation, a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and a former Co-Chairman of India’s Telecom Export Promotion Council—he has also contributed a lot to overall industry progress.

It was a good time to sit down with this disruptor and follow where, and how, the cables of innovation and tracks of courage led to creating a new path in the Indian telco terrain.

Dataquest Editor Sunil Rajguru chatted with him in detail to understand how cobbled this path was to begin with and how the current tarmac came about.

From Chips to Fish-bones

Underneath all the business wisdom, Nayak is an engineer who did a Masters in the US–began with a start-up called Cadence, came to India, was in semiconductor design, and worked as an MD of a semicon major in his initial professional years. But he was pushed by the urge of building something from India. That’s how this Indian product company in the Indian Telco sector was born. Its products are now operational in 75 countries around the world. But both he and his company had to go a lot of ups-and-downs before finding a smooth road. Especially when its biggest clients were hit and when the Indian industry was in turmoil.

“It was a mission we started 23 years back”, he looks back wistfully, “It was tough especially when you are building a true-blue product company from India and a systems company, but we pursued the macro-opportunities with good execution. We survived a lot of turbulence. It took a lot of hard work and patience to reach this point.”

Now is the time to kiss the sky

Today, the whole geo-political situation in the world has changed and communication infrastructure has become critical. India chugged along well during the pandemic because of this infrastructure and the impact of remote connectivity through government initiatives. Nayak argues how trusted telecom infrastructure has become a spotlight now. The rip-and-replace opportunity around the world, and in India too, has come to the forefront suddenly, creating a large pull for the domestic industry. It’s like when Y2K happened, a lot of forces that were working on jumpstarting the software industry, suddenly, became a tailwind.

“Being ‘Aatmanirbhar’ has been a crucial point. Now we have the perfect storm – with external opportunities, internal capabilities that we always had and we are propelled well by self-reliant levers. It’s an interesting time to be in.” Nayak dissects the huge potential laid out now.

He also talks excitedly about how BharatNet made a real on-ground difference. “Let me tell you the law of bandwidth. The consumption of bandwidth is inversely proportional to one’s level of education. Because the visual and explanatory elements get higher. That explains why data consumption of data is higher in tier-3 areas instead of urban centres.”

“The rural customer is on a featured phone with 2G or 3G—So how does s/he get education, buy something though E-commerce? So BharatNet allowed local entrepreneurial anchors or VLEs to provide bandwidth and promote Internet in the villages. When the beneficiary has an interest in an asset- everything changes. That was a smart stroke made by this project. The model, barring some issues, has worked very well in India.”

In the last 2-3 years India has been a world example of converting a traditional economy to a digital economy- and this project has been a foundation there, he underlines the model’s role here.

He also zooms out a bit and explains why it is a good time for global ambitions.

“Tejas had a tremendous level of footfalls and interest at MWC too. Conventionally, companies were typically buying products from the US and Europe, and later from China. But the last two-three years have given a chance for India to step up—with great local talent, emphasis on local design manufacturing and a huge domestic market. The world is actually paying attention to Indian companies – and there is a lot of interest for sourcing products from India—better than ever before. However, we are not there yet but we will cover a big ground in the next one-two years.”

The Wheels We Need

Answering to Rajguru’s curiosity on what needs to be bolted well to translate these opportunities into results, Nayak summed it all up into ‘putting together a puzzle’. “In telco networks, there are 3 kinds of elements wireless networks and bases-stations, ‘fibre to the home’, transport network or backbone. In the ‘Aatmanirbhar’ journey, we have strengthened all three areas over a period of time. I am proud to say that 100 per cent indigenous software and hardware for 4G and 5G base-stations are now available in the country. We are almost ‘Aatmanirbhar’ in design capabilities—we have to do the same in economies of scale.”

That’s the stepping-stone to going global, he reasons. “If you can do it in India, you can be successful anywhere in the world—people in India want the best quality, the latest technology and at the lowest price—if you can crack this equation, you can be successful anywhere in the world.”

And surely, 5G will be a big variable in that equation.

5G – the lane that can change everything

Rajguru pointed out how 5G is not just about speed but an entire country-level transformation. Nayak averred and explained how 5G is about putting together some cornerstones. “One nice-to-have piece is speed, second is infrastructure. Roll-out of 5G will take three to four years because it will need a lot of depth and density- with lots of base-stations, sensors, cloud and compute platforms and edge infra. The third piece is – application. How to automate a port or a steel plant or make Telemedicine work—that’s application. These software solutions will work at the top—and these 3 together will make 5G usable in the real sense.”

And that’s where India has a brilliant home-ground advantage, he reminds. “We have been masters of the third piece—putting solutions for various verticals. The second piece of compute infra is getting in place and will take some time to be put on the ground. Communication infra is the backbone. So we can create useful and impactful 5G solutions – it will not happen tomorrow, but once we ‘perfect’ it in two-three years it will make a cookie-cutter solution for the world.”

Interestingly, the portfolio that the company has is also building its strengths as a puzzle-solver.

“Acquisitions like Saankhya Labs is one – we found two capabilities – semiconductor chip design and broadcast-as-a-service– that we found attractive,” Nayak explained. “Our thought process is to create a larger Indian ecosystem. Tata Sons—as a parent company- also gives us the benefit of the right aspirations – with the credibility they have created. We also get advantages of global expansion – India is a great brand for services but not as a product nation. Tata is, however, a brand which is world-class in acceptability, trust and longevity. Tata is also an institution that creates companies with long lives. Partnerships with TCS and Tata Communications also give us the best access to ecosystem strengths.”

As he looks ahead, Nayak is super-excited and confident about India’s strides ahead. He is confident about where the company is going next with the global ambitions accelerated by the Make-in-India wave. “It’s just a question of time. We have come far through hard work. It’s a lot of diligence, patience and resilience. Nothing great gets built just like that. Fortunately or unfortunately, it takes time.”

Well said. Well lived.

(Catch the complete interview on the Dataquest India YouTube channel)

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in